tried building Build Tools, but one perl module missing (MooseX::App::Cmd) and install attempts failed - also warned that several other files were missing (which should, presumably, be generated from the .in versions, which do exist). Didn't manage to get this to work.

started from scratch again, using lcfg-reltool to create tarballs and then unpacked and built on Debian

installed lcfg-client-2.2.37 first - unpacked & built (using cmake, and other utils from Debian build-essential package).

built remaining source tarballs on DICE for LCFG Core packages (some with "lcfg-reltool pack", some with "lcfg-reltool devpack")

test package-build using dpkg and built lcfg_client-2.2.37.deb(although it had been pointed out that there may be a package-naming conflict for mkxprof - may need to adapt Translate method of updaterpms-equivalent component?)

copied updaterpms component across & configured for Debian environment(kept "updaterpms" name for now/testing, to circumvent default resource problems prior to full installation)

investigated updaterpms binary (took a look at source to see what it actually did)

investigate package list generation & format

generate list in core/packages/lcfg/lcfg_deb_lcfg.pkgs?

source packages in /afs/inf.ed.ac.uk/pkgs/debs?

need to decide what Debian equivalent of /usr/sbin/updaterpms should do

w/c 16.Nov.09

investigated APIs available for perl, python, &c (limited number for perl, more for python)

confirmed that "dpkg -i <package>.deb" does handle dependencies (fails without installing if dependencies not satisfied, unless "--ignore-depends" is used)

given paucity of perl APIs, and unfamiliarity with python,experimented with mock-up of script in bash

w/c 23.Nov.09

experimentation with bash script highlighted differences between rpm tools under RedHat and dpkg suite under Debian - maybe forcing dpkg into the rpm mould may not be the best way to go

further investigation of dpkg suite, including source

attempt completion of simple mocked-up bash script

problems with dependency checking - there doesn't seem to be a way of delegating this to the dpkg suite, so needs to be scripted

w/c 30.Nov

Decided that bash script wasn't sufficient (it didn't have appropriate data structures, nor did it have library routines to do the dependency checking). Trying perl...

investigated library routines available as part of DPKG::Parse, but these didn't seem comprehensive enough

took a look at updatepkgs on SunOS , but noted that routines did not include full dependency checks.

took another look at DPKG:Parse, and tried to use library routines to build data structures from Debian package information - but not overly successful.

investigated library routines available as part of libapt-pkg-perl (essentially perl wrappers to call libapt-pkg C routines), but need to learn more about object data structures in perl in order to fully understand use/implementation of DPKG::Parse & AptPkg .

w/c 07.Dec

still investigating use of libapt-pkg-perl (AptPkg ) library routines, and used to build & interrogate package data structures

took a look at the source for apt-get to see how dependencies were dealt with.